Save and find your instant message conversations

If your organization has made this feature available, you can have Skype for Business (Lync) store copies of your previous instant message conversations. You can also tell Skype for Business (Lync) to keep statistics about your phone conversations (such as date, time, duration and caller information). Both collections of information will be stored in your Microsoft OutlookConversation History folder, and you can review the most recent ones by clicking the Conversations tab on the Skype for Business (Lync) main window.

Important: If a check box (checked or not) is grayed out and not working, you don’t have the option to change the setting. In this case, most likely your organization has decided to make it a policy that IMs and/or calls will not (or, if the corresponding box is checked, will) be saved in Outlook. Contact your Skype for Business (Lync) administrator or IT organization to find out if the policy can be overridden.

Turn on conversation history

Conversation history is off by default. Here’s how to turn it on:

On the Skype for Business (Lync) main window, click Options
> Personal.

Note: This functionality is either on or off. If it is off, all conversations are discarded and you won’t be able to select specific messages to keep. Likewise, if it is on, all your conversations will be saved. However, you can go into Outlook and delete messages you don’t want to keep.

Browse your conversation history

To see a complete listing of your incoming and outgoing instant messages and meetings, including ones you might have missed:

Open Skype for Business (Lync), and, above the search box, click the Conversations tab
.

All your conversations appear in chronological order, with the most recent at the top. Phone calls you’ve had also appear on the conversations list. However, missed calls that resulted in voice mail are displayed on the Phone view that you get by clicking the Phone icon.

To narrow the list, click one of the other two tabs on the Conversations window:

Missed Lists your missed conversations only

Calls Lists your phone calls only

Find a previous conversation with a specific contact

Open Skype for Business (Lync), and in your Contacts list, right-click the contact whose previous conversation you want to view.

Click Find Previous Conversations.

Outlook opens and displays that contact’s conversations with you in the Conversation History folder. To track down the specific conversation, enter in the search box at top of the Outlook window a term or terms that would have come up in the conversation you are looking for.